All tyrant flycatchers in the genus Empidonax, called empids out of either affection or frustration, are suboscine songbirds with olive upperparts, pale throats and bellies, and whitish wing-bars and eye-rings.

Although the same codon deletion is found in representatives of at least two other avian orders, it is not present in lineages representing a diverse group of suboscine and oscine passerines.

We tested whether a suboscine bird, the alder flycatcher, was able to discriminate between songs of neighbors and strangers despite limited individual variation in song.

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Despite the predominance of suboscines in the Neotropics, our knowledge of bird song and its functions is biased heavily toward studies of oscines.

Chesser examined the molecular systematics of the New World suboscines and included three antpitta genera (Grallaricula, Myrmothera, and Grallaria) and one antthrush in the study.

All of these suboscines - both Old World and New - thus have geographical distributions that point back to Gondwana, and their beginnings there make even more sense once their close relatives, the songbirds, are taken into account.